Medical Tourism on the Rise for NDs in Portland, OR

Mark Davis has an unusual medical specialty. The procedure is called a fecal transplant, and it involves placing donor feces into the colons of patients suffering bowel disease.

There are few medical practitioners performing fecal transplants for a variety of symptoms anywhere, so it isn’t surprising that Davis has patients traveling from as far away as Sweden and Spain. What is surprising is that Davis is a naturopathic doctor, one of many local naturopaths who are turning the medical tourism industry on its head.

In recent years medical tourism has involved U.S. citizens traveling to India for cheaper hip replacements or Mexico for inexpensive dental work. If people from outside the United States come here for medical care, typically it involves a specialty such as cutting-edge cancer treatment unavailable in their home countries.

And that pretty much describes what is occurring in Portland, according to the naturopaths treating international patients. For those in other countries looking for advanced naturopathic therapies, Portland, they say, is considered a destination.